Church service after church service.
Bible study after Bible study.
Book after book.

We read.
We read.
We read.

We hear.
We hear.
We hear.

How many times have we heard a Word from God and said, “Ooh that’s good!”, only to revert five minutes later back to the way we were before?

So, how do we make it stick?

How do we lodge what we’ve read or heard of God’s Word in our souls, so our hearts stay lifted and the heaven it brings remains on earth?

We eat.

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
— John 6:53

And what does it look like to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ?

Jesus gives us an example:

My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”
— John 4:34

Jesus is soul-food.

“For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”
— John 6:55-57

To “eat” is to make what you’ve consumed a part of you by walking it out—application is mastication.

Because, faith without works is dead.

The problem is we don’t eat it, we lick it.

We get a quick taste, say, “Ooh, that’s good!”, and immediately abandon it for the next thing that commands our attention.

“Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”
— Mark 4:18-19

We don’t drink the Word deep by dedicating time and space to it, sitting with it, exploring it and attempting to live it out. As a result, it never becomes real to us and nothing comes of it.

It’s just an idea that someone has to get us excited about over and over again.

“These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.”
— Mark 4:16-17

But, those who received the Seed and bear good fruit, the ones in whom the Word took root, they operate after their own kind, Jesus—the true vine.

What does that look like?

It looks like people taking up their cross and following, Jesus.

It looks like people concerning themselves with what Jesus concerned Himself with, preaching the gospel, seeking above all the Kingdom of God and its righteousness.

It looks like the ministry of reconciliation, making straight the path for the lost to be reconciled to communion with God through Jesus Christ.

Listen!

Luke 9:49 gives an account of the disciples who came across a man who heard Jesus and immediately got to the business of waging war against demonic occupation, and confronting them in the name of Jesus.

The problem was, he didn’t go to seminary, he wasn’t ordained, he wasn’t known among the establishment and the disciples forbade him.

But how did Jesus respond?

“But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.’”
— Luke 9:50

Why?

Because he was showing us how to make the Word stick.

He took up his cross and followed Jesus.

He got after the Father’s business.

He walked it out.

He ate.

We should do likewise.